Friday, September 25, 2009

Today Lady M will be trying to impress her charges with an art and culture field trip.She’ll be hosting the G-20 spouses, first, a trip to the School of Creative and Performing Arts which will include a show by the students and includes performances by Trisha Yearwood and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Then on to a tour of the Andy Warhol museum.I think you can see why Ms. Yearwood was selected.

This is a natural for Mo, who’s always believed that arts, culture and governance are a natural fit - for those who know how to use them properly. She’s always been a big fan of Mao’s cultural revolution – except for the funny brown uniforms the little children wore. Mao’s Red Guard

For her own cultural revolution, Lady M wore a dress by Zero + Maria Cornejo. She chose a Sacai belt to cinch in that waspish waist. Cornejo’s signature print dress is in a lovely amethyst, charcoal and cream silk charmeuse with geometric shapes of circles, squares and triangles.I think that about covers it. Very contemporary.You might even find it in an art gallery.

As is the custom, MO will be presenting the G-20 spouses with a thoughtful gift of their trip to Capitalist America. The White House described the gift yesterday:

Mrs. Obama will be presenting G20 Spouses with a “one-of-a-kind porcelain tea set and honey vase designed exclusively for the occasion of The Pittsburgh Summit 2009, with honey harvested especially for the occasion from the White House beehive."

They are lovely and, not to quibble, but at last count there were 20 spouses of the G-20 delegates (OK, the 2 men-spouses were no-shows, but my point's still valid) who were to receive this very thoughtful gift made in the land of Lincoln. How is that “one of a kind?” Can we maybe get someone in the protocol department that speaks English as a first language?

But none of the spouses are likely to complain. They’re just relieved that they’re not getting a crummy iPod loaded with Big Guy’s speeches, like we gave the Queen of England last spring. Back then BO’s speeches only took up 4 gigabytes. Now, we’re into the terabytes, and it would take forever to delete them all.

The last leg of the culture tour was a stop at the Andy Warhol (a native of Pittsburgh )Museum. Warhol was the leader in the Pop Art movement, which artist Richard Hamilton described as "popular, transient, expandable, low cost, mass produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, big business."